


Poker With Gang Julie

by wishful_stargazer



Series: JATP: Stories From The Poker Table [3]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:40:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29046276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishful_stargazer/pseuds/wishful_stargazer
Summary: Julie hosts a sleepover...with a few extra guests, both ghostly and human.
Relationships: Flynn/Carrie Wilson, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson, Kayla & Reggie Peters (Julie and The Phantoms)
Series: JATP: Stories From The Poker Table [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2124372
Comments: 20
Kudos: 61





	1. It's My Party

“Are you sure you don’t want to ask Carrie, niña? I know you haven’t been close lately, but maybe now we could work on changing that?” Ray Molina looked down at his daughter, concern evident in his blue eyes.

“Maybe another time, Dad,” Julie answered.  _ If you only knew, Dad, _ she thought.  _ At this point I’d rather make friends with a rattlesnake than Princess Carrie the Wicked. _ “I just want Flynn, Flynn’s cousin Riley, Kayla, and Lauren.”  _ And I wouldn’t be inviting Kayla if Reggie hadn’t been begging me for a week. _

“Your call, honey,” Ray said, leaning over and kissing her on the forehead. “I have a shoot in San Francisco, so your tia will be here for the first few hours until my plane gets in.” 

“Dad!” Julie exclaimed. “She won’t leave us alone for even five minutes! C’mon, I’m sixteen, can’t we just have the place to ourselves until you’re home?”

Her father tilted his head and looked at his daughter. She concentrated on giving him her most beseeching stare. “Alright, niña, you win. I’ll have her pick Carlos up at school and take him home with her, that way he won’t be bothering you girls.”

Julie threw her arms around her dad. “You are the BEST papi.”

Ray hugged her. “I’m just so glad you’re seeing your friends again. Not that I’m not thrilled that you have your band, but they can’t be very much company all the way from Sweden!” Still embracing him, Julie rolled her eyes. If her dad only knew just how much “company” she had on a daily basis!

*****

Julie was dancing around the downstairs area, spinning in circles to “Uh-Oh” from some new artist...Jimmy? Jeremy? She couldn’t remember, but the song was great. She opened their fridge, took out the tray of fruit and sweet cream cheese dip, and set it on the counter. She looked over the spread blanketing their kitchen island. They had tortilla chips, mango salsa, guacamole, and tostones and empanadillas courtesy of Tia Victoria. Julie dumped a big bag of peanut M&Ms into a glass bowl. Riley’s mother was part-owner of a bakery, so she and Flynn were bringing cupcakes and cookies. Since Carrie was not on the guest list, they could skip the raw vegetables and fat free ranch dressing she always insisted on. Julie giggled. If she never ate another raw celery stick while listening to Carrie moan about her non-existent fat stomach, she could die happy.

“We’re here! And we brought ALL the sugar!” Flynn’s voice echoed in from the vicinity of the front door. 

“In the kitchen, do you need help?” Julie called back.

“No, we’re good,” Flynn answered. When they rounded the corner, Julie understood why. Flynn’s older brother Elijah was with them...and carrying what looked like four shopping bags of baked goods. Riley only had a couple of pints of ice cream, and Flynn a small package of napkins and another one of paper plates.

“Hope you didn’t strain yourself carrying that in here,” Julie teased Flynn, who airily flipped a braid over her shoulder and said “Hey, he offered to fetch and carry, I didn’t ask him!”

Julie took a couple of the bags from Elijah and started laying out the cookies on a tray. “Thanks for doing this, Eli,” she smiled up at him. 

“No problem at all. Happy to do it,” he smiled down at her. “Hey, Julie, some friends and I caught your band when you all played Dickson Plaza at UCLA. You guys are incredible,” he continued admiringly.

“Thank you so much,” Julie blushed, “we’re actually getting kind of popular. It’s exciting.”

“No question about it, you guys are going to be stars,” he said. “Hard to believe you’re Flynn’s little friend Julie Molina.”

If he only knew how infatuated she had been with him before he left for college! Julie tried to think of something clever to say, and failed miserably.   
“Well, it’s hard to believe you’re Flynn’s big brother Elijah,” she blurted out  _ (Whaa---aaat? _ Her mind screamed at her.  _ Oh my God, Julie, you are the least cool person ever!)  _ “I mean, you’re so tall now and your shoulders are so--” she gestured widely.  _ Worse and worse,  _ she thought, wishing she could disappear.  _ Flynn! This is Julie, if bff telepathy is really a thing I need you to rescue me NOW. _

“WHERE ARE THE RED VELVET?” Flynn interrupted, just as if she’d heard Julie’s silent plea. “Did you leave them in the car, Eli?” Eli stopped looking at Julie and went through the bags. 

“Whoops, guess I did. Hang on, ladies,” he winked at the trio of girls. “I’ll be right back.”

*****

Flynn was already licking the cream cheese frosting off of a cupcake when the doorbell went off. “That’ll be Kayla or Lauren,” Julie said. “Be right back.”

It was Kayla, all right, but standing next to her was the one person Julie did NOT want to see that evening. “Oh, hi, Carrie,” Julie said sweetly, “dropping Kayla off?”

Kayla laughed a little bit, clearly uncomfortable. “Hi, Julie, you don’t mind if Carrie comes, right? It’s been so long since we were all together--” her eyes silently begged Julie not to make a fuss. 

Julie closed her eyes for a single breath, then forced a smile onto her face. “Of course, Kayla, any friend of yours is welcome. I should warn you, though Carrie, we’re all about the carbs and sugar tonight. Even the fruit comes with cream cheese dip.”

“Oh, I never worry about carbs any more, Julie,” Carrie smiled artificially. “Working out with Dirty Candi every day means I can eat whatever I want. And of course, if you’re happy with your...figure...who am I to criticize?”

“Right,” Julie nodded at her.  _ This is going to be a really, really long night.  _ Fortunately, Lauren arrived at that moment and distracted Carrie from taking any more digs.

It wasn’t going to stop Flynn, though. “Wow, just LOOK at who didn’t have any plans for Friday night except to crash OTHER PEOPLE’S PARTIES,” Flynn cooed at Carrie as the girls entered the kitchen. She held out a bakery box with a wide smile, “Cupcake, Carrie?”

Carrie glared at her. “Oh, Flynn, I was concerned people would hear you were here and nobody would come.”

That was enough. Julie stepped in. “Okay, Carrie, Flynn, at least, was invited. You can be nice, or you can leave.”

Carrie’s perfect lips shaped into a tiny “o”. “Never let it be said I can’t be a good guest,” she replied sweetly, “can I help you carry all this somewhere?”

“I think we’re good for now, Carrie, thanks. My dad’s out until around 11, so I figured we’d watch the big TV down here and take it upstairs when he gets home.”  _ You can do this Julie,  _ she silently told herself.  _ It’s only one night, after all. Still, maybe best to have some ammunition, just in case. _

“Flynn?” she called her best friend over. “Maybe you should have Eli bring that old Ouija board that we used to mess around with. Do you guys still have it?”

Flynn’s eyes lit up with glee. “Oh, we’ve got it.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Calling him now.”

The girls filled their plates with goodies, the music switched over to “Will They/Won’t They” and Lauren began to sway her hips to the slow beat. “This is great, Julie,” she called. 

“Yeah, he’s really good. I really need to learn his name, though, because we’re opening for them next week,” Julie answered, as she grabbed a can of Coke from the fridge. She turned around...right into Reggie! “Whoa!” and the can hit the floor. 

“I’ll get it!” he exclaimed. “You probably don’t want to, uh, open that right now.”

“Don’t help me,” she whispered, “what if they see the can floating in the air?”

“Right! Got it!” Reggie said, “No worries Jules, I saw Kayla come in, I’ll just go say “hi!”

“You do remember she can’t hear you, right?”

“Oh, no, I know...still” he smoothed his hair back and straightened his shoulders, “I wouldn’t want to be rude.” He winked at her and poofed into the next room. Julie retrieved her Coke and went to the garage to talk to Luke.

“Julie!” Luke called happily from the coach, where he reclined, shirt-free. “C’mere. Tell me you ditched all the girls in pjs and we’re going to work out that lyric problem!” 

Julie did NOT come there. Like she was going to work out lyrics with Luke sitting there in his chestliness. “Do you ever wear more than the bare minimum of clothing?” she asked,tapping her right foot.

“Well, not unless I have to,” he grinned up at her. “Come on, sit with me, babe.”

She thought briefly of her party. Then she thought about snuggling with Luke. “Five minutes,” she said, before curling up on the couch with him. 

“So,” she started, once she was comfortably encircled by his right arm. “I seem to have a party crasher.”

Luke cursed and stopped twirling his fingers in her curls. “I told Reggie to leave you guys alone.”

“Oh, him, too. But I was actually talking about Carrie.”

“Ugh, is that why you came out here?”

“Well, kinda,” she flipped over in his arms until they were chest to chest and she could face him. “I was wondering if later tonight you might be willing to haunt us a little.”

“Oh, really?” his eyes sparkled at her in that way she loved, and a tiny smile danced playfully across his lips. “I don’t know...I suppose if we’re subtle...not like Reggie!...we could get away with it. What did you have in mind?”

She told him, and his tiny smile grew into a smirk, then a grin, then a laugh. “Okay, okay, I’m in. But before you get back to them, we need to discuss the REALLY important question.”

Julie shook her head at him, having no idea what he could possibly be referring to. He brushed his thumb across her lower lip and looked teasingly up at her, before whispering in her ear. “What kind of pajamas are you planning on wearing for your party tonight?”


	2. Dead Man's Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girls play Ouija, and the guys play pranks.

Julie headed to the kitchen for a knife. Since they had 4 kinds of jumbo cupcakes, they’d decided cutting them in half would make more sense so everyone could try all of the varieties if they wanted to. Kayla had requested they start with  _ Dirty Dancing _ , and “when everybody called me Baby and it didn’t occur to me to mind” floated in from the living room.

She also grabbed the rocky road ice cream from the freezer for Lauren. Reaching for a spoon, she glanced down at herself. After Luke’s parting question, she had purposefully donned her very baggiest flannel pajama bottoms, the ones where she had to loop the string around her waist twice. As if she was going to dress to impress a horny ghost.

Of course, if she topped the bottoms with the skimpy satin tank top that Flynn had smuggled to her for her 16th birthday, well, that was about not getting shown up by Carrie’s fluffiness and had nothing at all to do with Luke.

_ Yeah, right. _

“Thanks Eli!” she heard Flynn say at the door, right before she came racing around the corner into the kitchen. “I got it!” she waved the Ouija board at Julie. “Are the boys going to make an appearance?” 

“Shhhh…”Julie put a finger up to her lips. “If they hear you it’ll spoil everything! Here, take the ice cream--”

“By the way, Jules, my brother is so completely into you. He is crushing HARD since he saw you play.”

Julie’s brain turned off. “What? No, that can’t--”

Flynn leaned her head forward and nodded significantly. “Yeah, he keeps asking if you’re seeing anyone, and of course I say no.”

“But I AM seeing some--”

“That nobody knows exists! Our parents know each other. If I tell Eli--”

“Yeah, no, that makes sense.” Julie leaned her elbows on the island for a little bit, just trying to take it in. “Wow, Eli wants to date. ME?”

“Um, yeah. AND, not that he’s not a complete dork because of course he is, but he’d also treat you GREAT and he’s even ALIVE.”

There was that word again. ALIVE. Everything Julie was. And Luke wasn’t. Then she thought of his arms around her, his eyes simultaneously smiling at her and studying her, as if trying to memorize everything about her. She pictured the way he stood up a little straighter whenever she came into the room. She heard him calling her “boss.” And before she realized it, she was touching her lip, right where he had pressed his thumb twenty minutes earlier.

She looked at Flynn and shrugged her shoulders. “He may not BE alive, but he makes ME feel alive.” She didn’t need to specify who “he” was. 

“We-e-elll,” Flynn blew a gum bubble. “That’s a choice.” Then she threw her arm around Julie’s shoulders. “C’mon Jules, I don’t want to miss the ‘I carried a watermelon’ scene.”

*****

Two hours later, the sun was down, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” had been said, and the final dance had been danced. Kayla sighed. “Why aren’t there any real guys that are that sweet and honest and adoring?” she lamented.

Carrie gave her a look. “He’s a dancer for hire. An unemployed guy who makes his living by, I don’t know, doing the cha-cha with old women. Of course he’s going to be sweet and adoring and grateful. What else does he have to offer?”

Kayla stood up angrily. “Well, I don’t know, Carrie, if it were 1963, Dirty Candi would probably also be described as dancers for hire. And that pink hair you like so much would probably have you serving cocktails in a bunny suit!”

“Whoa,” Riley muttered under her breath. “THAT I didn’t expect.” She eyed Kayla with new respect.   


“Okay, guys, let’s not fight over Swayze!” Julie jumped in. “Maybe it’s time to do something else--”

She was interrupted by a loud crash from the direction of the kitchen. Then all the lights in the house went out, along with the stereo system and the TV. It was suddenly very dark and quiet.

“No problem, guys,” Julie called out cheerfully. “We have a flashlight and some candles in the kitchen. Be right back!” And she took off into the next room. “What are you DOING,” she hissed at Luke and Reggie. “I said kill the lights, not destroy the kitchen!”

Luke gave Reggie a look of purest wrath. “Reggie got concerned that you wouldn’t be able to reach the candles, and insisted upon getting them down from the cupboard. What you heard was him dropping the aluminum cookie sheets all over the floor.” Then he got a good look at Julie's shimmering tank top, stopping a couple of inches above her pj bottoms. "Whoa," his eyes darkened and his lips curved before he gave Reggie another menacing stare. "Eyes front Reginald!"

Julie rolled her eyes, poked Reggie in the chest, poked Luke for good measure, and then took two steps...to the junk drawer, from which she pulled a couple of small flashlights, a bag of tea lights, and some matches. 

“Just get up to my room so we’re not walking through you when we head upstairs, please,” she sighed. Luke dropped an apologetic kiss on her cheek before vanishing in a whoosh of silver. Reggie followed, and as Julie contemplated the empty air he left behind it occurred to her that Reggie was EXACTLY what Kayla was wishing for. Only unlike Julie and Luke, they couldn’t touch. She couldn’t even see him or hear him unless the band was playing. Suddenly that struck her as incredibly sad.

She turned on the flashlights and walked into the living room. “Come on ladies, I’ve only got two flashlights, so everyone turn on your phones and let’s conga line up the stairs! And remember, God wouldn’t have given you maracas if--”

“He didn’t want you to SHAKE ‘em!” They all yelled and laughed. 

*****

Upstairs in Julie’s bedroom, they set around a bunch of the tealights and lit them. With the small mirrors underneath them, they generated a modest amount of light, although not enough for playing cards or reading magazines or doing manicures. 

“Never mind, I’ve got this,” Flynn said, reaching under Julie’s bed and pulling out the Ouija board.

“Oh. My. God. Flynn,” Carrie huffed. “Are we twelve?”

“Better be careful, Carrie,” Flynn returned. “The evil spirits might just realize you’re one of their own and take you back with them.”

“Guys!” Julie interrupted. “I think it could be fun. Who knows what could happen? And, seriously, what else are we going to do here, in the dark, all stare at our phones until the electricity comes back on?” 

“Okay, fine, whatever,” Carrie gave in. “But before I forget, I want a selfie.” She preened. “My skin looks amazing in candlelight.”

*****

After Carrie finally put her phone away (that was ONE thing Flynn and Julie insisted upon--they certainly did not want any video of what was actually going to happen!) they seated themselves in a circle around the Ouija board and put tiny candles on each of the four corners.

All of them except Riley put their fingertips on the planchette. Riley was designated the recordkeeper, a title she seemed relieved by. “You guys mess with that thing as much as you want. I’ll just write down the letters from over here.” She plopped down on Julie’s bed.

“It’ll be fine Riley,” Carrie interjected. “We’re not actually going to contact some other realm.” Her impeccably polished fingertips rested very lightly on the planchette.

Julie decided it was time to kick things off. “Ouija, are you here?” she asked. And felt an arm wrap around her shoulders and a gentle kiss on her temple. She turned her head and smiled into Luke’s loving eyes. Reaching out with his other hand, he guided the planchette over to the “YES” corner.

“You’re pushing it Julie,” Carrie accused. “I can feel it!”

“No, I’m not, Carrie, but if it makes you feel better, I’ll take my fingers off completely.” Julie pulled back her hands, and the blinds in her window suddenly lowered themselves to the sill. The girls, even Flynn and Julie, jumped and turned to stare.

Except of course, JULIE, unlike the others, saw Alex, who waved cheerfully at her. She giggled softly, and started playing with the soft, fine hairs at the nape of Luke’s neck.

“Hey!” Alex said. “Nobody wants to see that.”

Luke shrugged. “Okay, fine,” he murmured, and, leaning over, blew out the candles on the board.

“What the--”

“Oh, man--”

“We need more candles!”

“Get a grip.”

Julie relit the candles, then carefully removed her hands from the board. Unseen by the others, Luke grabbed her right hand and pulled it in for a soft kiss before lowering it to his knee.

Julie cleared her throat. “Ouija,” she tried to say with authority. It was somewhat difficult with Luke lightly tracing the lobe of her right ear with his callused fingertip. “Ouija, are you here because there is a restless spirit inhabiting our home?”

Luke stopped tickling her ear and got down to business, moving the pointer to “YES”. There were a few scattered gasps. “Does it mean us any harm?” Luke moved it to “NO.” 

“Does it need anything from us?”

YES

“What does it need?”

Luke pushed it from letter to letter. 

“I’ve got it!” Riley called excitedly. “To move on!”

Even though it was exactly what Julie had told him to say, suddenly, there was a sharp pain in her chest. She gripped his hand more tightly. The point of this evening was to give Carrie a scare, not for Julie to torture herself with thoughts of the future.  _ He’s here now. If he’d crossed over, I would have ALREADY lost him. If he hadn’t died, he’d be my dad’s age. Every day we’re together is a gift.  _

She became aware everyone was looking at her. “Um, Ouija, how do we help the spirit move on?”

And the planchette started spinning wildly around the board. The blinds opened and shut and opened again. Julie’s fan turned on, extinguishing all the candles in the room. The lights flickered on and off, and the board spelled FLEE FLEE FLEE.    


The girls, all except Flynn and Julie, screamed and ran. So much for subtle.

“Get the lights back on, please Luke,” Julie whispered.

Riley was the first to recover. As it turned out, a Diet Pepsi and some chocolate restored order to her universe. She was clearly already making up something to tell herself to explain it all away. Lauren was second. If anything, Lauren was excited. “Possible real contact with the spirit world! Sign me up whenever you want to throw a party Julie!”

Kayla reappeared after 30 minutes or so. Nobody had been able to find her, but she calmly said she’d been sitting on the floor of the coat closet until she felt safe to come out. Since she seemed remarkably recovered, Julie took it at face value and focused on her last concern.

Carrie wouldn’t come out of the bathroom. 


	3. Party Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carrie and Kayla recover from being "haunted" by the boys.

“Carrie, it’s fine,” Julie pleaded through the bathroom door. “Honestly, look--the lights are back on and everything! Plus you don’t even believe in ghosts!”

  
“Ghosts may not be real but something weird and horrible is going on,” Carrie insisted. She sounded as if she’d been crying. Julie felt awful. She’d wanted to scare Carrie into acting like a human being, not terrify her into hiding. She decided to try the truth. Well, a version of the truth anyway.

  
“Carrie, look, it’s just a trick...um, I rigged up something for fun...I didn’t mean for anyone to take it seriously.”

  
“Oh, really? You rigged up something? Just like you rigged up your little device that isn’t any more advanced than an EtchASketch but somehow generates realistic 3D holograms that sing and play music and look at you like you’re the treasure they’ve been waiting their whole lives to find? That kind of rigging? Yeah, I don’t buy it, Julie Molina and I don’t know how anybody else does either. I’m staying right here until your dad comes home, because I know your band hates me and you and Flynn hate me and Nick hates me and I...hate...me…” and Carrie’s voice dissolved into sobs.

  
Julie was really panicking now. She’d tried many times to figure out a good way to break the truth about her band to her father. She’d never found a good one, but she was pretty sure there couldn’t be a worse way than “Hey, Dad, I invited the 17 year old ghost boys living in our garage to come play tricks on my slumber party.” Then she had an idea.

  
“What about Nick, Carrie? If I call Nick and he can come bring you home, would you feel safe then? You know he would come for you if he knew you needed him.”

  
Silence.

  
“I’m going to call him.” Julie said.

  
The door opened. Carrie looked awful. Her eyes were red and bloodshot, her nose was running, mascara was smeared around the rims of her lashes, and she was holding her fluffy pink robe closed with one hand...the waist strap nowhere to be seen. “Don’t call Nick,” she said quietly. “He won’t come.”

  
“Carrie, you know that’s not true--”

  
“Yes, yes, it is. Or if he came, it would be because he felt sorry for me.” For a second Carrie’s eyes flashed with their typical fire. “I don’t want his pity.”

  
“Okay, then, will you come out of there, Carrie?” Julie asked quietly.

  
“It’s really okay, Carrie,” Kayla said tentatively, giving her friend an encouraging nod. “I can take you home if you want.”

  
Carrie shook her head. “I--I just want to be by myself. If I go home my dad will ask all these questions.”

  
“Did you care about questions when you told my dad you saw me out at an over-18 club?” Flynn broke into the conversation indignantly. Carrie seemed to shrink into herself.

  
“Flynn, I--”

  
“No, you and I are going to talk real talk, now,” Flynn pushed her way into the bathroom, turned around, and **shut the door in Julie’s face!**

  
“Nick hates you? Julie and I hate you? You hate you? Then STOP, Carrie.” Flynn’s voice softened. “You can stop any time, you know?”

  
When they heard Carrie start to cry, much more softly this time, Julie decided they should probably stop listening.

  
“You know what, guys? Why don’t we head downstairs. The lights are back on and there’s a giant TV with our names on it.” The girls nodded and quietly filed down the staircase.

  
An hour later, they had switched from late night TV to Texas Hold’Em.

  
“Flush, king high,” Lauren said with satisfaction as she tabled her hand. “This is almost too easy.” She swept the M&Ms that they were using for stakes into her growing pile.

  
“Ooh, big talk,” Julie teased. “How confident are you feeling?”

  
“Pretty confident.”

  
“Then let’s get a little more interesting. What do you guys think about a few hands of Crazy Pineapple?”

  
Riley gave her a sideways glance. “I heard you were a poker shark, Molina,” she said skeptically. “Are you trying to hustle us?”

“Who, me?” Julie giggled. “C’mon, we’re going to play with the M&Ms I provided! What do you have to lose?”

  
Forty-five minutes later, Julie had a giant pile of green, blue, and yellow M&Ms in front of her and was counting the oranges she’d just won from Lauren.

  
“Yep, total shark,” Riley affirmed.

  
“Not really,” Julie admitted. “I ran ridiculously hot tonight. Although there was that one hand where I bluffed you out with nothing.” She winked.

“Wait...what? Why..you…”

She was interrupted by the sound of the door to the upstairs bathroom opening. Everyone looked up and they saw Flynn and Carrie slowly negotiating the stairs side by side. Flynn had one arm around Carrie’s waist and Carrie was clinging to Flynn’s hand like she needed it to stay upright.

  
“Jules, I’m going to take Carrie home,” Flynn said as casually as if she wasn’t hand in hand with the girl she had nicknamed “demon spawn” and “princess of the doomed.”

“See you tomorrow?”

“Sure, Flynn. Goodnight, Carrie.”

Carrie nodded silently. She looked exhausted and sad, and kind of beaten. Julie frantically tried to think of something she could do to take that look off of Carrie’s face. “Um, if you feel like carb-loading, we still have six of those salted caramel pretzel cupcakes you like. You can take the box.”

Carrie smiled. “Thanks, Julie,” I might grab a couple.” She and Flynn made their way into the kitchen, Carrie still gripping Flynn’s hand.

*****

Later, after Julie’s dad had come home and reminded them to put the food away, Kayla smiled at Julie. “We didn’t even get to the fruit,” she noted.

Julie shrugged at her. “It’ll be good for breakfast. And the sweet cream cheese dip is amazing on a bagel.”

“Julie, can we talk for a second?” She jerked her head toward the living room. “Just you and me?”

Oh, no, what now? _Okay, Julie Molina, this haunting idea of yours was officially the Worst Plan Ever._ “Sure, Kayla, what’s up?”

They walked together into the living room and grabbed opposite ends of the sofa. Kayla didn’t quite seem to know where to start. She looked at the ceiling for a second, pressed her lips together, and then seemed to hesitate before meeting Julie’s eyes.

  
“I, um. Okay. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable Julie. You don’t owe me anything, you know. But the thing is Carrie wasn’t wrong.”

  
Definitely dangerous territory here… “Wrong about what?”

  
“About your hologram machine that doesn’t seem nearly advanced enough to do what it does. About the weird tricks that were played tonight. About the way that guitarist that you’ve supposedly never met looks at you like he’d die for you. Don’t get me wrong!” She held up her right hand as Julie opened her mouth to try to refute some of this. “I’m not calling you out. You don’t need to explain anything. But, um, when I was in the coat closet, someone else was there. Somebody held my hand and rubbed my back until I wasn’t scared anymore. And I couldn’t exactly hear, but they whispered something about “so, so sorry” to me. It made me feel totally safe. And then, when I felt better, they took both my hands and helped me to my feet.” She looked down at her slipper and kicked her foot a couple of times before continuing. “Anyway when I opened the closet door, for just a second I could see who it was.

  
“It was your bass guitarist, Julie, the one with the super dark hair and amazing cheekbones. But I could see THROUGH him. And then he was gone.”

Kayla smiled. A very happy and very peaceful smile. Like the Mona Lisa, she looked as though she was hugging a secret tightly to herself. She finally looked up at Julie again. “Just let him know I said thanks. That’s all.”

And with that, she got up and walked back into the kitchen. Leaving a completely speechless Julie behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long to finish. I knew how I wanted it to end, but I got a bunch of other ideas that I wanted to explore, AND I had difficulty making Carrie do what I wanted her to.
> 
> I know that Carrie has her own insecurities and difficulties, but I find it difficult to sympathize with her enough to write them realistically. After losing my own mom very suddenly and unexpectedly, i'm pretty much always going to choose Team Dead Mom over Team Making Fun of Team Dead Mom.
> 
> Still inspiration struck today, so here's the final installment of Poker With Gang Julie. I do have more ideas for stories in this series, so please let me know in the comments if you would be interested in reading them.
> 
> Thanks for reading, everyone!


End file.
